# Wishful thinking

ThwartedEfforts (abakun@scinc.com)
Wed, 17 Jan 1996 13:42:46 PST

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    At 10:54 AM 1/17/96 -0800, you wrote:
    >If the X, Y, or Z coordinate is greater than sqrt($maxint/3), then we have
    >problems.

    Agreed.  And I never thought that $maxint would be too small :)

    >For piloting an object through space, integers simply do not suffice.

    ;sqrt($maxint/3)
    => 26745

    Assuming three decimal places, that gives you 26 sectors a side to your 3d
    space, which comes out to 17576 sectors total (assuming space is 'square' :)
    ). Assume 2 decimal places, at 267 sectors each axis, that's 19034163 total
    sectors.
    I've played alot of TradeWars in my time, and I've never come across a game
    that had more than 2k worth of sectors (75% of which went unused).

    Anyway, thank god we don't need to plot every object through space for all
    cases, talk about lag. :)

    Come to think of it, why are all the current 'space game' implementations
    using some 3d space idea.  Is anyone doing a TradeWars style layout?  Not
    only would this be much easier to program, but it would remove concentration
    from the actual navigation (join the Navy if you want to learn that :) ) and
    more on the actual battle taking place -- ends up being "can my 50 fighters
    take on your 500 fighters" rather than being a game where my knowledge of
    polar naviagtion is pitted against yours.

    "Er, set a heading, er, 90mark45, engage at, uh, warp 1"

    "Warp to sector 55" (a la TradeWars)

    Andy

    (incidentally, there is some debate here in the office as to if the
    functions you gave for calcing distance and whatnot are what is needed... :)
    Some seem to think that the limit of sqrt($maxint/3) is incorrect. herf. oh
    well, it will keep everyone here busy for a while :) )